The Economy is "Building" Momentum as it "Trucks" Along Expansion Road

This was a relatively slow week for economic data. When the data is slow the analysis can go deep - or the media can focus on rumors and innuendos.  Remember, we have had three solid months of jobs data. The reports have not been as strong as they could have been. The housing markets, new and existing, continue to recover. The Dow Jones is approaching 21,000 after people rebalance portfolios.   We received some good news this week regarding new home starts, automobile sales, and unemployment claims. The weekly unemployment data was remarkable.

(May 16) The April New Construction Data is showing that activity is building momentum.  New home starts were the highest for April since 2007. The under construction data was the highest since 2007. The completions data was the highest since April 2007. We need other  people to start reporting this good news. We need this data to understand the economy. We need this activity to create jobs in construction, home and gardens, furniture, electronic and appliance, and other sectors of the economy. We also need this new construction activity to offset the existing home inventory shortage.

(May 17) We recently received the the April Jobs Report. This report provided data that revealed the best first three months of job creation since 1981 for two term Presidents. We were still shedding jobs  during President Obama's first twelve months in office. This column has produced articles regarding the official jobs and unemployment numbers, the "Five Presidents at Month Three" article, the "War on Men" column, and the Sector data. This week the analysis was by age group. "April's Aging Workforce, Working Longer" showed that there is some good news for those under the age  of 40. There was also some more data indicating that those over the age of 40 are having trouble finding work, or holding on to their jobs.

(May 18) They still release weekly unemployment claims data and weekly unemployment claims reports on Thursdays. This week we received first-time Unemployment Claims data, non-seasonally adjusted, and Continuing Claims data, non-seasonally adjusted, that we have not seen since the Summer of 1969, 1970, or 1971. Some people picked up on the data - others were talking about Comey again.These were generational lows for the month of May. What are we discussing? Rumors and innuendos.

(May 19) There has been considerable amounts of discussions regarding the "slowing" automobile market. The thing here is that the Motor Vehicle and Auto Parts (MVP) Sector literally, and figuratively, drives this economy. We have seen strong retail sales in the MVP sector of the retail market during January, February, March, and April were stronger than they were during 2016 when initially reported. The current discussion of how "weak" the automobile sector has been caused me to dust off my Automobile sector data set, update it, and examine the trends. The article "April Vehicle Sales Trucking Along" details that while April Automobile sales did drop from last year's level, and while automobile sales were slightly slower than April 2015 levels, light truck sales were virtually identical to last year's April record high, and April Light Truck sales outpaced those level of April 2015 by nearly 100,000 units. The shift from cars to trucks continues to motor. There is also some interesting data regarding Mexican and Canadian imports. Ah, NAFTA.

We need to get the media back on track. President Trump was elected to revamp immigration, jump start the economy, and to lead the country from the front of the pack. Jobs are up. Retail sales are doing better this year than last year. Employment is up and unemployment is down. Next week we will receive more unemployment data. Will we see the continuing unemployment claims number drop below 1.7M or even 1.6M? Will this impact the current U-3 unemployment level of 6.555M workers who are unemployed? Will that number drop to under 6 million?

It's the economy.